Blog For B2C Marketing Professionals

April 2008 Archive

I am now officially back in action after 3 months of maternity leave. It seems that the report I wrote about the future of ad networks was timely to say the least - the uproar that is currently occuring over Yahoo proves how much is at stake.
I also hope that the new announcements around Platform A's leadership jumpstart that effort, as it is the closest to living the dream of the "new ad network."
I'd love to hear updates from everyone as I get myself back up and running.

When queuing up this entry, I noticed that there's no category for "agency" related posts. That's OK because Mary Beth Kemp, my colleague and co-author of The Connected Agency report, has taken the lead on a new Forrester blog called Agency Futures. So I'm cross-posting this, there.

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Listening, the improving is a skill required for every business, and at Forrester, there's no exception.

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I'm at Forrester's Marketing Forum
in Los Angeles today. And again, I'm up at 4 am local - is this
technically jet lag? I won't be doing a lot of blogging or tweeting
because my schedule's full. However, you can get updates from a
variety of sources:

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We’re gearing up for next week's Marketing Forum in Los Angeles, with over 800 expected attendees, the company is really excited to deliver great content, facilitate networking, and showcase technology vendors that help solve marketing problems.

The speaker lineup is impressive, aside form Forrester analysts presenting their key industry findings we’ve speakers from Fedex, Nike, Wal-Mart, Dell, Leapfrog, and more. The event team has been working hard to prepare all the logistics, and I've already listened in to dress rehearsals for presentations (our speakers rehearse dozens of times, in order to deliver high value)

Also, each of the attendees are getting a copy of the upcoming Groundswell book.

Congratulations in order this morning to Janet, Howard, and the rest of the team at Umbria. The brand monitoring firm was acquired today by J.D. Power & Associates, the customer satisfaction research company.

The significance of this acquisition lies in the acquirer -
McGraw-Hill/JDPower is different type of company than Nielsen and TNS -
and will use brand monitoring differently. One thing in common -
another brand monitoring brand name disappears. Umbria will be folded
into their new parent company, while Buzzmetrics/Intelliseek have
disappeared into Nielsen Online and Cymfony now operates as part of TNS
media.

I have a short research piece publishing soon for Forrester
clients.

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On a recent trip to Shanghai I attended a huge party for Adidas. I was there with a friend of a friend who works for Ticketmaster and specialize in creating exclusive events and PR for brands, bands and celebrities. Now this party was thumpin.' On the top floor of a trendy Shanghai "loft" with a glass floor to see all the way down to the ground 20 odd floors below. The room was chock full of people, and also huge digital billboards broadcasting Adidas commercials and branding messages.